Read time: 3 min.

I haven’t studied the schoolhouses of Wayne County as closely as I’d like. I drive to Richmond once or twice a month, but aside from trips down US-35 and across State Road 38, much of the area remains a mystery to me! That’s why I was shocked to find this farm building that sits just north of Dalton: I’m pretty sure it’s an old schoolhouse. 

Dalton Township sits in Wayne County’s northwestern corner. Organized in 1847¹, it’s home to two unincorporated communities- Franklin and Dalton. Dalton’s the only one that shows up on a map today, and the schoolhouse I think I found sits about a half mile north, just across Dalton Road from Nettle Creek. 

Old maps confirm this place to be the site of a schoolhouse. In 1856, the institution served students from Dalton Township’s District 11 and sat on eighty acres owned by C. Burrows². The building still stood on Burrows’ land in 1867, but the township had been redistricted. By then, the schoolhouse served District 2³. 

Still serving District 2, it stood on the land of W. Harris in 1894⁴. Eventually, the District 2 school became known as “Georgetown College⁵.” A postal service map indicates the school was still being used in 1910⁶. The following year, Dalton Township’s District 2 schoolhouse -said to be fifty-eight years old, so built in 1853- was condemned along with the schools serving districts 3 and 4. Its worst features were “ground wet, sills decayed, and…a bad odor prevailing as a result of a rotten floor⁷.”

At the time, officials planned to consolidate the District 2 school with District 3⁸.  A new elementary school at Dalton was built the same year, and its construction led to the closure of the old Georgetown College. For its part, Dalton Elementary was shuttered in 1968 after the consolidated Nettle Creek School Corporation opened a $3 million junior-senior high school in Hagerstown⁹. 

I haven’t managed to snap a photo of the old Dalton school, but the 114-year-old structure still stands. So, too, does Dalton Township’s old Georgetown College schoolhouse! At least I think it does. Frame schoolhouses were in vogue back in 1853, and the building’s windows, returns, and location all point to it being an old one-room school. Whether it’s an old schoolhouse or not, the old shed just north of Dalton has me itching to dig deeper.

Sources Cited
1 US Board on Geographic Names (2007). United States Geological Survey [Washington, D.C.]. Web. Retrieved April 5, 2025.
2 Condit, Wright, & Hayden (11856). Wayne County, Indiana 1856. Middleton, Wallace, & Co. [St. Louis]. Map. 
3 Warner, S.C. (1867). Map of Wayne Co., Indiana. E.B. Gerber [Ligonier]. Map. 
4 The county of Wayne, Indiana, an imperial atlas and art folio (1893). Rerick Brothers [Richmond]. Map. 
5 Map of Wayne County, Indiana showing rural delivery service (1910). U.S. Post Office Department [Washington, D.C>]. Map.
6 Long Service To Children Will End; Dalton, Millville Schools To Close. The Richmond Palladium-Item. p. 4.
7 Condemned Three Dalton Township Schools Tuesday (1911, April 19). The Richmond Palladium. p. 1.
8 (See footnote 6). 
9 (See footnote 6).